


Whistle and I’ll be there

by havisham



Category: War Horse (2011)
Genre: Horses, M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How not to say this awkwardly? An imaginary history of two secondary characters in a children's film about a horse. During a war. Needless to say, there's tragic lovers and lessons about being caught on the wrong side of history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whistle and I’ll be there

Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over;  
I only vex you the more I try.  
All's wrong that ever I've done or said,  
And nought to help it in this dull head:  
Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye.

But if you come to a road where danger  
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,  
Be good to the lad that loves you true  
And the soul that was born to die for you,  
And whistle and I'll be there.

A.E, Houseman.

  
**I.**

When they first meet, then-Captain Stewart stares him down. Sniffs at him, all disapprovingly. Nicholls squashes the impulse to put his hat back on his head, because he’s got the idea why Captain Stewart disapproves of him. It’s his hair. (It’s frustratingly curly and golden and _heart-breaking_ for his little sisters who inherited nothing like it at all. But more importantly, it is not content to lie flat. Not just yet. He hadn’t had the time to tame it, this morning.)

“How do you do, sir.” He sticks out his hand -- which is not sweaty at the least -- and it’s a full second before Stewart deigns to shake it.

“Do something about your hair, lieutenant.” Stewart’s voice is a bored drawl. A snap of long fingers.   _Dismissed._

“Of course, sir.”

As starts go, it isn’t the best.

  
**II.**

Years go by -- of training, of being thrown together, and in all different situations, including a miserable shared holiday in the Highlands and a disastrous encounter with a devil of a horse called Charlemagne -- before they are able to call each other by their Christian names.

Truly, James is a very good sort of name to have. Kingly, in fact. Maybe a bit Scottish, but Stewart is also a bit Scottish, so that’s all right. (No one insults the proud Scots around _him_.)

James is also a rather common name to have. In fact, both Nicholls and Stewart share it. (It could be worse. They could be John, and share with that name with a quarter of the regiment.)

Stewart decides that this is unacceptable.

He’s a major now and also the eldest by five years at least, and so, James, by rights, is his to have. His tone is very certain when he says, “Well it’s decided, I’ll be James and you’ll be... Jim, I suppose.” _Not that it matters._

Nicholls is immersed in his drawings, and says abstractly, “I haven’t been Jim in years. My parents named me James, the same as yours.” _Yes it does._

Stewart is a little put out. He didn’t expect much resistance. “We can’t both be James, don’t be silly.” _I am right, stop contradicting me._

“All right.” Nicholls pauses from his drawing and looks up. But there’s a challenging look in his eye, a thing that belies his acquiescence. He's going to fight, Stewart perks up at that.

Nicholls is thinking. He's nibbling on the end his pencil, leaving small smudges of charcoal (non-regulation) on his cheek. He purses his lips...

“Well-l-l-l, I suppose I could be Jim.” This a very grudging concession.

“Of course you will.”

He breaks off, laughing. “As long as you are our best-beloved _Jamie_.” Checkmate.

Jamie harrumphs unhappily. He’s _not_ a Jamie, he feels that most keenly, he’s not that sort of person _at all._

(But in the end, he doesn’t disagree.)

+ 

Later on, Nicholls is Jim to everyone ( even Lovely Jim to some) -- everyone likes Jim, from the men to the kitchen-maids and even the stuffiest of the senior officers. He has that effect on people. A sort of goodwill that bubbles up within him. It is soothing, what?

Major Stewart remains Major Stewart.

No one but Jim has the right to call him anything else but _that._

  
**III.**

“Oh, but he’s a beauty.”

Everyone agrees, and hangs on to further admires all of the new thoroughbred’s good qualities. A shining coat, black as soot -- no, as ebony. Bright, intelligent eyes. Good, clean lines that speaks of his good breeding.

It's arrogant and temperamental too, and this fits well enough with its new owner.

Waverly asks eagerly, “What are you going to name him, Major?”

Jim, who has been feeling low ever since he was told that his horse, old Sebastian, would not be going overseas, offers this --- “Call him Black Beauty.”

“I’m not a little girl, Jim, I can’t call my horse _Black Beauty_.”

“It’s true, he can’t!”

“Shut up, Waverly.”

“The name wasn’t given to him by a girl.”

“Quiet. His name is Topthorn, and that’s the end of it.”

  
**IV.**

He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing at all. Of course, no one must know. Not his family, nor the small group that could be termed his friends. Never a romantic, he is not surprised the learn that love is nothing like it is in novels or plays. It’s not declaration in gardens or shy meetings at the park. It is a serious of hints and evasions, of tactical retreats and hasty offensives.

It should be planned, but it never is. It is a secret, shared by only two.

Often, it is inarticulate, expressed with harsh ---

  
A yawn interrupts his musings, and a pillow hits him in the abdomen. “Stop,” says a muffled voice. There’s a glimpse of a pale belly and a tanned forearm emerges from the tangle of sheets, followed by a messy golden head. “Don’t brood,” he says, lips puckering, face falling into worried lines.

“Easier said than done,” he says quickly. He could have denied it. He could still bluster pointlessly on. It would amuse them both, these roles they’ve carved out for themselves. He’s always the bite, and Jim is always the balm. As a matter of fact, it’s game that that has never failed them.

“I’ll stop, if …”  
“If...”

He’s pulled down, and accepts defeat with only a solemn nod.

  
**V.**

This is terrible. Charlie _knows._

Jamie is distressed. He wants anything but this. “Oh god, please, please, don’t tell me he knows.” Jim lowers his head. It is not in defeat, he looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

Jamie digs his elbow into the other man’s side. This is all your fault. Jim retaliates by leaning hard, and saying in a low voice, “He won’t tell a soul. He swears to it.”

Charlie chooses this moment present himself and to pipe up. “On my mother’s grave!”

A groan. Jim says softly, “Charlie, Charlie, _no_.”

Jamie is furious, but he tries to control himself. “Lieutenant, am I right in saying that your mother is still living?”

Charlie coughs nervously. “Well. Yes. But she and father have bought a plot and everything, so you see, I am not lying.”

“Leave. Immediately.”

“Yessir.”

  
**VI.**

They watch Joey and Topthorn scuffle playfully in the field. They nibble at each, and than shy away. Horseplay at its finest.

After a while, Jamie says, “I demand a rematch.”

Jim laughs and gives a lazy swat of his hand. “We’d only beat you again.”

“You could certainly try.”

“And succeed.”

  
**VII.**

A forest in France is alive with the scream of dying horses and the busy hum of machine-guns. One world is ending, another is starting.

The din lasts only for so long.

  
The rest is (will always be) silence.


End file.
